Aragami (2003)

Director:

Ryûhei Kitamura

Writers:

Shôichirô Masumoto (story) and
Ryûhei Kitamura (writer)

Release Date:

29 April 2004 (Germany)

Genre:

Action | Fantasy | Horror

Plot:

A raging god of battle and a master samurai duke it out in a series of sword fights in a remote temple.

Plot Keywords:

Samurai | Sword Fight | Swordplay | Character Name In Title

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Takao Ôsawa	...	The Samurai
Masaya Katô	...	Aragami / Tengu / Miyamoto Musashi
Kanae Uotani	...	The Woman
Tak Sakaguchi	...	The Future challenger
Hideo Sakaki	...	The Samurai's Friend

Runtime:

Germany:70 min (Fantasy Film Fest) | Argentina:78 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

DTS-Stereo | DTS

Certification:

UK:15 | South Korea:15 (cable rating) | Argentina:16 | Germany:16 | Australia:M

Company:

Amuse

Trivia:

Yukihiko Tsutsumi and Ryûhei Kitamura each finished their contributions to the short film anthology Jam Films (2002) in record time. As a result producer Shin'ya Kawai gave the two directors a proposal to each create a feature length movie with only two actors, battling in one setting and filmed entirely in one week. The undertaking was called the Duel Project. This was Ryuhei Kitamura's result and Yukihiko Tsutsumi's _2LDK (2002)_.

Quotes:

Aragami: Ninja stars are for losers.

Movie Connections:

References Versus (2000/II)

Cheap action flick to satisfy the Western appetite

I really liked the story in this movie, of mysterious beings that existed in the world and the night they spent before the showdown. However, it turned out to be just another action B-movie plagued by poor acting and story development.

I should've known from the English opening credits that this movie would be a joke made for the foreign audience though. I can just see it now, these directors and producers discussing this film in a meeting. "Subtlety doesn't work for foreigners, let's have Oosawa Takao over-react to everything." "They like CG, let's add an unnecessary space scene to it." "They liked VERSUS, let's get Tak to appear in the end"...

Katou Masaya's performance as Aragami was pretty impressive. He seemed to be really into the character and portrayed the mysterious character and its motive very well. Oosawa Takao though, I know is a much better actor from other films.

This film's action wasn't bad, but nothing out of ordinary. It was clearly produced in a rush and little attention to details. The Aragami's speech, for example, ended sentences with "...Ja" in beginning of the movie, which is what barbaric men say in Japanese, but he practically stopped it altogether in the second half of the movie for no reason. Such abrupt change in speech pattern is a proof of poor production. A nice stab at the Dual Project Challenge, but ultimately a good script wasted.